Sweet and Spicy Pineapple Plantain Soup

This soup began by putting the following into my trusty stockpot:

• EVO (enough to coat the bottom of the stockpot)
• rough-chopped celery
• frozen diced onions - maybe a cup
• frozen red, yellow, and green bell peppers strips - maybe a cup
• 2 diced hot peppers from the farm share with the seeds removed (In 20/20 hindsight, I would have only used one and I would have made DARN sure that every single seed was gone)
• basil - not sure how much but I'm guessing 1 Tbsp.
• oregano - about 1 Tbsp.
• cilantro - about 1 Tbsp. 
• salt and pepper which I kept adding in as I put more ingredients in the stock pot. I saw SOME chef I don't remember on the Cooking Channel talk about layering seasoning and I tried it.
• About 1/4 cup of minced garlic from the jar

After all of that was stirred up well and starting to soften, I added the following to the mix:

• 4 sliced, ripe plantains
• 2 cans of pineapple chunks (if I had had crushed pineapples in the cupboard, I would have rather added those but that was only in that darn retrospect)
• Lime juice (from the green plastic lime - I'm guessing I added about 1/2 the plastic lime by the time all was said and done.

After everything was ooey gooey soft, I added two cartons of organic vegetable broth, brought it to a boil, reduced the heat, and simmered for about a half hour.

Then I tasted it. YOWZA! Way, way too spicy.  And I like spicy. So I added two cups of water and another carton of vegetable broth, more lime juice, the strained juice from an orange and a lemon, then brought it to a boil again, reduced the heat again, and simmered for another half hour or so.

Tasted again. Still too hot. Then I decided to add lemon and orange zest. Since I don't have a lemon zester (on my wish list), I just cut off pieces of both peels into tiny pieces and threw them into the stockpot and added more lime juice. Then I posed the "How to cut spiciness" question to my Facebook riends and someone gave me the brilliant suggestion of adding honey. So I did. I started out with about 1/8 of a cup but kept adding more. After the first addition of honey, I brought to a boil again, reduced the heat again, and simmered again and repeated this process every time I tasted it and added more honey. By the time the soup was done, I'm guessing I added about a cup of honey but with boiling and simmering in between.

Still too hot. So then I added a cup of quinoa, brought it to a boil again, reduced heat again, and simmered for a half hour or so.  Then, I did the removing and blending and adding back in thing to make it creamier. I probably only blended about half the stockpot. I'm thinking with the pineapple chunks and the orange and lemon peels, I probably should have blended the whole thing but that's more about texture than taste.

It was a long time getting there, but I REALLY like this soup. Very, very sweet and very, very spicy. Mmmm.